Reigning PGA Tour rookie of the year, with area roots, off to good 2014 start.

Jordan Spieth started 2014 the same way he played in his Rookie of the Year season on the PGA Tour, completely unawed.

A year ago at this time, Spieth had no status on any pro tour after leaving the University of Texas in the middle of his sophomore season. Last week, the 20-year-old was in the hunt most of the way before finish solo second in the Hyundai Tournament of Champions on his first trip to the Plantation Course in Kapalua.

From his first day on the PGA Tour, the big stage hasn't fazed him.

"Never really wanted to think that way," said Spieth, who will play for the first time this week at the Sony Open in Hawaii. "I mean, you don't want to. It makes it almost a bigger-than-life experience, when truly we're just playing golf.

"So I don't know if there's a timeframe, but I've now been playing with these guys week in and week out for five months-ish, so that's a lot of events.

And I've been able to compete with them, so kind of feel like this is where I want to be, this is what it's all about, to feel the pressure of Sunday at a PGA event."

All Spieth — who was born in the Lehigh Valley and whose parents both went to Saucon Valley High School and local colleges — did last season was finish in the top 10 on nine occasions on the best tour in the world, tying for the lead in that category. He claimed his first victory in a playoff at the John Deere Classic, and he finished second three times.

Even beyond that, his numbers were staggering.

Spieth finished third in the PGA Tour's all-around ranking, ninth in scoring average at 69.698 (including fourth in the final round at 69.22), eighth in total driving, second with 13 eagles, 10th on the money list and seventh in the final FedEx Cup standings after tying for second in the Tour Championship.

Again, he wasn't overly impressed.

"I didn't look too much into it," said Spieth, who went from nowhere to 22nd in the World Golf Rankings in his first season. "My instructor likes to look at that, and then he kind of makes it a little more basic. He doesn't want me digging too much into it, in a sense. I agree with him.

"Overall, I was extremely happy with the all-around stat, whatever that is called, encompassing all of them. … My putting the second half of the year, strokes gained versus the first half of the year, was significantly different getting used to the greens, and I putted a lot better."

By performing so well, he played his way into being one of Fred Couples' captain's picks for the Presidents Cup, chosen over such veterans as Dustin Johnson and Jim Furyk.

While Spieth obviously made the team on his own merit, it didn't hurt that he had no less a figure than Phil Mickelson in his corner.

"Dude, you've got to pick this guy," Mickelson said in a text to Couples after watching Spieth eagle the final hole to shoot 9-under-par 62 to finish in a tie for fourth at the Deutsche Bank Championship during the PGA Tour playoffs.

Mickelson told reporters: "What I loved was there was nothing freakish about it, and the variety of shots he played. He looked so comfortable under pressure as well."

As for the three second-place finishes, Spieth doesn't beat himself up over what might have been.

He ended up one stroke behind Scott Brown in the Puerto Rico Open, lost in a playoff to Patrick Reed in the Wyndham Championship and finished three strokes behind Henrik Stenson in the Tour Championship.

"I don't look back at it in a greedy sense," said Spieth, who captured the U.S. Amateur in 2009 and 2011, joining Tiger Woods as the only multiple winners of the event. "There were a couple that slipped through my hands.

"In the playoff, there wasn't a whole lot I could do when I lost the playoff. I played it well. The Tour Championship was another second place. Obviously, Henrik was playing some phenomenal golf, as he continued to throughout the rest of the year. But I really haven't looked back much."

Not even at his victory in the John Deere Classic, where he holed a bunker shot on the 72nd hole to get into the playoff, then turned back defending champion Zach Johnson and David Hearn with a par on the fifth extra hole.

That was two weeks before his 20th birthday, making Spieth the first teenager to win on the PGA Tour since Ralph Guldahl captured the 1931 Santa Monica Open.

Because he didn't earn his PGA Tour card until winning at TPC Deere Run, he didn't receive new-member orientation from tour officials until last week at Kapalua.

"There definitely were still some things that I had questions about regarding the FedEx Cup, regarding whatever, all kind of stuff," Spieth said. "There's still quite a bit of that I don't understand, that I'm not worried about right now, like the pension program and all that. …